Parents of children with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities are accustomed to paying close attention to their child's physical, cognitive, and emotional development. This proactive approach should also include their child's sexual development, which for many parents may not seem as obvious or urgent, especially to those with young children. Drawing on her unique background as both a sexual educator and mother of a child with Down syndrome, the author blends factual information and practical ideas for teaching children with Down syndrome about their bodies, puberty, and sexuality. This book gives parents the confidence to speak comfortably about these sometimes difficult subjects. In an easy-to-read, non-clinical style, the book covers relevant issues and concerns for children of all ages, such as: Labelling & explaining private body parts; Identifying & expressing emotions; Respecting personal space; Teaching self-care & hygiene; Understanding norms of privacy; Understanding gender identity; Showing appropriate levels of affection. It also covers later issues that affect teenagers and young adults, including: Anticipating and understanding puberty; Dealing with periods, bras for girls; Experiencing erections, wet dreams for boys; Relating to the opposite sex; Sharing parental values about sexuality; Explaining sexual relationships; Preventing sexual abuse; Understanding how Down syndrome affects puberty & fertility rates. Each chapter highlights important points with key messages, teaching activities, parental pauses, and anecdotes, all of which prompt readers to stop and consider concepts or values associated with a particular topic. The final chapter covers the special concerns of parents who are now teaching teenaged or adult children about sexuality for the first time. It concludes with extensive appendices containing invaluable teaching materials and illustrations of body parts and functions.

This volume offers a state-of-art review of what is known about young children with Down syndrome from a developmental perspective. The underlying theme of the book is that children with Down syndrome, despite their constitutional anomalies and their additional medical and biological problems, can be understood from a normative developmental framework. Interventions guided by developmental principles in the biological, educational and psychological realms are more likely to result in informed knowledge about how best to help children with Down syndrome and their families. Children with Down Syndrome will appeal to researchers, theoreticians, educators, and clinicians in a range of disciplines, as well as to parents, social policymakers, and other advocates for the best interests of children with Down syndrome.

Revision of: Gross motor skills in children with Down syndrome. 1997.

Provides information and resources to improve children's communicaton at school, home and in the wider community.

This book explains the best practices and procedures for helping children master the finger and hand skills needed for home and school activities.

This commemorative 10th anniversary edition of Gifts will include 10 new personal stories, along with "where are they now" updates on many of the children and families featured in the first edition. Gifts is the much-loved collection of over 60 essays written by mothers who share their truths about raising children with Down syndrome. Powerful then and powerful now, it affirms over and over that a life with an extra chromosome is one worth living.

An argument that more people should have children with Down syndrome, written from a pro-choice, disability-positive perspective. The rate at which parents choose to terminate a pregnancy when prenatal tests indicate that the fetus has Down syndrome is between 60 and 90 percent. In Choosing Down Syndrome, Chris Kaposy offers a carefully reasoned ethical argument in favor of choosing to have such a child. Arguing from a pro-choice, disability-positive perspective, Kaposy makes the case that there is a common social bias against cognitive disability that influences decisions about prenatal testing and terminating pregnancies, and that more people should resist this bias by having children with Down syndrome. Drawing on accounts by parents of children with Down syndrome, and arguing for their objectivity, Kaposy finds that these parents see themselves and their families as having benefitted from having a child with Down syndrome. To counter those who might characterize these accounts as based on self-deception or expressing adaptive preference, Kaposy cites supporting evidence, including divorce rates and observational studies showing that families including children with Down syndrome typically function well. Himself the father of a child with Down syndrome, Kaposy argues that cognitive disability associated with Down syndrome does not lead to diminished well-being. He argues further that parental expectations are influenced by neoliberal ideologies that unduly focus on the supposed diminished economic potential of a person with Down syndrome. Kaposy does not advocate restricting access to abortion or prenatal testing for Down syndrome, and he does not argue that it is ethically mandatory in all cases to give birth to a child with Down syndrome. People should be free to make important decisions based on their values. Kaposy's argument shows that it may be consistent with their values to welcome a child with Down syndrome into the family.